In the state of the art, agricultural vehicles such as tractors are known with which loader operations can be performed by means of a loader arrangement, for example, a front loader. Loader operations can include stacking operations, but also planning operations, shove operations or clearing operations. In part such vehicles are offered for sale without an operator's cab, in particular in the case of smaller vehicles, for example, small tractors, with which in addition to loader operations other operations can also be performed in narrow spaces and particularly in spaces with low overhead. In order to protect the operator of the implement, such vehicles are equipped with a roll-over protective structure in the form of a roll-bar extending in the vertical direction behind or in front of the implement operator's seat.
For operations in narrow or low space, the roll-bar may be an obstacle. For this reason, many manufacturers of such vehicles offer a roll-bar that can be pivoted or even folded, so that if necessary or desired, the vehicle can be operated with a roll-bar that has been pivoted downward or folded together.
Such vehicles are offered for sale, for example, by the company BCS. A small tractor with a mounted loader arrangement is disclosed in a product brochure “VALIANT 400–500” by the company BCS publication number 901000766-07/2002, in which the roll-bar is pivoted from a vertical position over the front hood of the vehicle and can be locked in a horizontal position. The problem here is that during the installation of the loader arrangement, the pivoted roll-bar can remain in a horizontal position, so that an operator of the vehicle could fail to erect the roll-bar. However, without the roll-bar the safety of the operator is impaired.
The problem underlying the invention is seen in the fact that the safety of the implement operator may be impaired during loader operations.